by Linda Holmes
Why am I upset? I’m upset because you pushed me into the dresser, Tim.
I absolutely did not.
You did this with your shoulder, like this, and you knocked me into the dresser. I’m going to have a bruise. You want to see it tomorrow?
I was leaving the room so you could calm down. What did you step in front of me for?
I didn’t.
Evvie, you don’t need to be so dramatic, okay? We need to get going. My parents are going to wonder why we’re late.
This had been six months after they moved into the house. She had indeed had a bruise on her back the next day, where she’d fallen—fallen?—against the edge of the dresser. She’d told nobody, and when Tim had noticed it on her back when she was undressing a couple of days later, he’d said, “Ouch, how’d you get that?” She wasn’t sure if he honestly didn’t know, but she’d said, “Playing freeze tag,” and even though she thought it sounded sarcastic enough not to miss, he just nodded and kept looking at his phone.
And here was the bed where they had sex, but not very often, and not very well, and not for very long. She’d hardly ever regretted that her best friend was a man, but part of her mourned the fact that she’d never felt comfortable disclosing to Andy how precisely she could clock sex with her husband at nine minutes. If it started at 9:51, she’d be able to watch Halls of Power, and she never missed the beginning.
And now, here was Dean, tall and broad and slow-moving as he lay next to her in his jeans and bare feet. He always smelled like freshly mowed grass, and she wasn’t sure whether it was because of something he wore or washed his hair with, or because he spent so much time on baseball fields, or because she was imagining it, the way she always expected a lobsterman to smell like the ocean, whether or not he actually did. But she could not inhale enough of it, and when she’d find a spot, a hollow under his jaw or a span along his side, where she especially noticed it, she’d linger there trying to memorize it for when it was inevitably gone.
There was something about fooling around with clothes on that—no, it was not better than the sex, but the voluntary frustration of it thrilled her. It was like they were sneaking around in her own house, collapsing on her bed and tugging at each other, letting snaps and buckles slow them down. But finally, she cracked: she sat up and pulled her shirt over her head, and his fingers threw shadows on her skin in the sun through the bedroom window.
Later, as they were dozing between acknowledgments that they should go downstairs and eat something, she said in a shared waking moment, “I’m excited. Do you want me to come to Connecticut with you?”
“No, you can’t,” he said. “It’s a work thing. They’re going to test me out, try things, put me in situations and see what happens.”
“I’ll give you a lock of my hair for luck,” she said, pulling a strand away from her head with her fingers.
“I’ll settle for knowing you’ll be here when I get back,” he said, gathering her up with his arm and curling up against her.
DEAN AND EVVIE DECIDED ONE night while they were a little bourbon-drunk that before Dean went to Connecticut, they ought to have Andy and Monica—going strong after six months—over for dinner. Evvie and Monica had texted a few more times back and forth after the Great Lingerie Advisory: a conversation about what to get Rose for her birthday; a story Monica shared about Mama Kell calling her Eveleth and then, while apologizing, calling her Lori; and their discovery that someone had written some very elaborate fanfic where Dean fell in love with Jennifer Lopez. (They agreed that it wasn’t bad.)
So Dean texted Andy with the invitation for a Saturday, and Andy texted back that they’d be “stoked” to come—a word, Evvie noted, that he had to have picked up from Monica, as she’d never heard it from him before. When the day came, it was warm and dry, so Dean took a steel brush to the gas grill in the yard, which had been dormant for two years, and picked up a bottle of propane. Evvie spent more than she usually would have on steaks and fat sausages from the butcher, and she loaded a basket with bright green, unblemished farmers’ market lettuce she could build salads on. She fell to the temptation of some wild local mussels—much tougher to find than they’d once been—and bought a bag of those as well. In the afternoon, she baked brownies from scratch and let them cool while Dean made a run for beer and wine. Red with steaks, she figured, but white for summer, so she told him to grab some of both, and some beer, and she threw in a bottle of vodka, because, hey, you never know.
Just after he got back, while he was in the backyard starting the grill, her phone vibrated in her pocket, and when she took it out, it said, “Unknown.” Probably a wrong number or a marketing thing, or possibly the people doing the survey about Maine’s public lands, which she’d gotten two or three times already. She slid her finger over to “Ignore.” But when it vibrated again a minute later, she realized whoever it was had left a message. She poked the button to listen.
“Hello, Eveleth!” Oh, God. “It’s your mom. I’m going to be in Portland in September, and I was hoping we could get together. I haven’t seen you in ages, and I hope you’re doing well. By the way, my friend Foster saw your name in the paper in a story about your friend who’s a baseball player. It sounds very exciting and I can’t wait to hear all about it. Bye-bye, honey, call me back.”
Evvie put her phone back into her pocket. Perfect. A headache started to kick in almost immediately. Eileen Ashton was coming to Portland. Eileen, who had seen Evvie maybe five or six times in the last twenty years, wanted to meet up. The last time they’d seen each other had been the second time her mom met Tim. The first time had been while they were dating as teenagers and Eileen unexpectedly showed up at Eveleth’s high school graduation party. The second time had been after they were married, when Tim insisted on a visit once, when they took a vacation to Florida. It had been tense and anxious for her, happy for her mother, and obligatory for Tim. Since Eileen had missed the wedding, it seemed only right she’d missed Tim’s funeral, too, but at least she’d sent cards for both. Evvie decided to think about it later. For now, she had a Bluetooth speaker she kept in the kitchen, so she put on a mix she liked and opened the windows as it started to cool down outside.
The side screen door opened. “Grill’s working, and I didn’t burn down the house or blow myself up, so I’m feeling pretty goddamn great about myself. Got my hands a little dirty, but I’m giving myself a win.” He went by her on the way to the sink as she was drying the lettuce in a spinner, and without touching her, he bent and kissed her shoulder, at the edge of her stretchy, sleeveless bright blue dress.
“I see you’re getting out ahead on the booze,” he said, noticing the half-full glass of white wine that was already dewy on the outside.
“Hey, if I have to work this hard, I might as well be in a good mood,” she said, dropping cut tomatoes and cucumbers into the bowl. Just then, she heard the doorbell, and Dean finished drying his hands and said, “I got it, you do this.” When he was out of the kitchen, she reached over and picked up the glass and finished it off in a couple of hearty swallows.
By the time they got into the kitchen, her glass was full again. “Hey, welcome, glad you could come,” she said as Andy leaned over to give her a hug. “Dean’s going to go burn stuff on the grill, it’s going to be very exciting. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Yes. Monica’s driving, and Lori has the girls for the weekend, so I will take a beer.”
“Oh,” Evvie said. “I didn’t know Lori was taking them this weekend.”
Andy sighed. “Yeah, me neither. We’ll talk. Hand me some of that raw meat I see over there.” Dean and Andy went out back with the steak and sausage, and Evvie put on the pot to steam the mussels open, and poured wine for Monica. They sat at the table with their glasses, talking about the girls and about Catherine’s House of Presentable Brassieres, and at one point laughing so hard that Dean hopped up the b
ack steps and stuck his head in to make sure they weren’t yelling—not that he said this. What he said was “Are you two getting in trouble in here?”
It wound up being a table you could only call “bountiful.” Monica had brought a round loaf of thick-crusted bread with a cracked top and crisp edges just shy of turning black. When she handed it over, Evvie had felt that it was slightly warm, and her eyes widened. “Did you make this?”
Monica held up one hand and counted off on her fingers. “Flour, water, salt, and yeast—that’s all that’s in it.”
The bread sat between a white ramekin of soft garlic butter and a big bowl of steamed mussels, popped open, all salty and lemony. The sausages were beaded with grease, and the steaks were comically macho, perfectly seared and so big they hung off the edges of the platter. Evvie had put a pungent, mustardy vinaigrette on the salad before they sat down, and the little plates, too, seemed overmatched by the task. They ate and they ate. And they ate.
“To friends,” Dean said, raising his bottle of beer. Glasses and bottles clanked together. Evvie already had a sheen of wine sweat on her forehead, and it was getting dark, so they closed the windows and turned the air conditioning on.
“So tell me more about this trip to Connecticut,” Andy said. “What are you doing down there?”
“I’m not even sure,” Dean said. “Fuckin’ out of nowhere, they want to see me. They already did everything but put a chip in my brain, so God only knows what this is going to be. Probably throw in front of some guys, throw to some batters. They’ll put a clock on me, which didn’t happen at the Dance. And I’m assuming they’re going to want me to pitch while a few cereal boxes run around the bases to make sure they’re re-creating the optimal conditions.”
“Are you nervous about it?” Monica put in, earning a tiny squirm from Evvie. There was no point in asking whether he was nervous. It would only…make him nervous.
“Of course,” Dean said, picking at the label on the neck of the beer bottle. “I spent two years trying to figure all this shit out. I pitch one good inning against—no offense—guys who aren’t that good, and everything’s wide open again. I’m trying to figure out if I’m going to regret it.”
“You’re not going to regret it,” Evvie said, staring directly at her glass. “It’s going to go great.”
“Wow, that’s a bold promise,” Andy told her.
“I’m a bold girl,” Evvie said.
“All right,” Andy muttered.
“Okay, you two,” Dean said as he sawed off another piece of sausage. “Monica, what’s new with you?”
Monica talked about her classes and the turmoil in her book club, which had been infiltrated by someone who was very unhappy that nobody ever read the books. Most recently, the book had been Infinite Jest, and Monica ran her hands over her hair in aggravation as she explained that of course they didn’t read Infinite Jest, and the point of book club was socializing, and if you had something to say about the book, that was perfectly fine, but you can’t come in and inflict your own rules on everyone. “I honestly think they’re going to blow up the whole book club and instead of having a book club where you don’t read the book, they’ll have a knitting group.”
Dean nodded. “Made up of people who can’t knit.”
“Perfect,” Monica agreed.
“Maybe you could take Evvie,” Andy said. “She could use something to do.”
Evvie leveled her eyes at him. “What does that mean?”
“You said you wanted a project,” Andy said, slathering butter on another piece of bread. “What happened to all that? You don’t want to do that anymore?” He threw his third bottle cap into the sink, where it clattered to a stop.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You used to talk about going back to school. You still thinking about that?”
“I don’t know. Things take time. Apparently it only takes six months to be the guru of active social lives, but—”
“I didn’t say I was the guru of anything. I said you keep talking about it and you’re not doing it. You’d say the same thing to me if I were sitting around my house all the time.”
Evvie had never considered herself any good at comebacks. Tim had caught her flat-footed all the time, saying things that left her shocked and stubbornly silent, if stubbornly anything at all. Growing up, she’d never had a thing to say to the kids who teased her about her small house or her too-short jeans. But on this occasion, with the belly full of food and the tongue loosened by pinot grigio, she looked at Andy and found precisely the right combination of ice and taunt and tart and sweet when she said, “Oh, I’m keeping myself occupied right here at home, Andy, don’t worry about it.”
She, of course, was the one who had said she didn’t want to tell him. And she hadn’t, but of course, she had.
Andy’s eyes flicked from her to Dean and then to Monica, whose look was hilariously transparent: Well, what do you want? I told you. “Well, I’m glad to hear it,” Andy said, and he went back to eating his steak.
“Evvie, I can’t get over how great your house is,” Monica said, grabbing the conversational wheel and pulling as hard as she could away from the ditch as the tires squealed. “Like I said, I’ve always thought you had the prettiest porch in the entire town, but the rest of the house is just as gorgeous.”
“Thank you. I can’t take credit for very much of it; my late husband bought the house without even telling me, so.” Evvie could feel the sway now, the way she knew it would take her a minute if she tried to stand up. “But it all worked out,” she quickly added.
Andy went to empty his mussel shells into the big pot on the table and he frowned suddenly at his bowl. “Hey, what happened to the flower dishes? I haven’t ever seen these, I don’t think.”
“I put them away,” Evvie said quickly, pouring more wine. “They’re in the basement.” She was pretty sure Dean was looking disapprovingly at her, but she ignored it.
“Did you get tired of them?”
“Yep. Just wanted a change. I like these, they’re simple.”
“Boy, out with the old and in with the new over here, huh?” Andy said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Dean jumped in. “Okay, that’ll do, Tipsy McGee, Buzz Lightbeer. I say we go sit outside now that it’s not so hot. I’ll bring the brownies, because I’m going to stuff about ten of them down my throat.”
Evvie grabbed the wine bottle she’d only just started on, and indeed, when she stood up, she reached out and steadied herself against the side of the table. “You good?” Dean muttered. She nodded and winked at him.
Out in the dark, they lit a candle and sat around the metal patio table. Monica slipped her shoes off and put her feet on Andy’s lap, and Evvie looked at the candle flicker reflected in her wine when she held her glass in close. “This is cool,” she said, her words beginning to slur.
“I’m not sure you want to be too close to an open flame right now,” Dean said, scooting the candle away from her. “And don’t breathe on it either. We’re going to get a flamethrower situation.”
“Do you remember the guy,” Andy said, “from high school, the guy who lit vodka puddles on fire with a lighter? And somebody said he had done it at home and he burned their toolshed to the fucking ground?” He took another drink. “That was nuts.”
“I have vodka,” Evvie said. “I could light puddles of vodka on fire.”
“No, thank you,” Andy brayed at her. “You are not the kind of girl who lights shit on fire.” He gestured at her with his beer. “Although maybe you are now, I’ve lost track of a lot. Dishes, everything.”
“Yeah, well. It’s funny how little information you get when you stop speaking to me.”
“I didn’t stop speaking to you. We stopped having breakfast together every single week because I got busy and you got busy.”
“Busy?” Eveleth almost knocked her wineglass over with her animated response to this one. “You weren’t busy, you were cutting me off.”
Andy wrinkled his brow. “I’m pretty sure you cut me off first, even if I didn’t know it at the time.”
Evvie was shaping every word with her mouth like it wasn’t responding the way she expected. “Oh my God, what is your problem? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the dishes. Why are you obsessed with every detail of my fucking life?”
Andy’s beer clanked inelegantly against the table as he leaned forward with it in his hand. “What are you talking about, I’m obsessed?”
“You’re picking at me about everything I do. You’re mad that I didn’t talk to you all about my marriage, you’re worried about what plates I’m using, you’re on me about school like you’re my dad, you’re telling me not to help Dean. I don’t get it. I don’t get what your problem is.”
“You’re not making any sense. Have some more wine, would you?”
“Did you not want me to meet anybody, Andy? Is that why you’re mad about everything I do without telling you? Or are you mad it wasn’t you?”
Now Dean, who had been watching and hoping all this was going to sputter harmlessly like a birthday candle, the way his teammates’ drunk arguments always had, leaned forward toward her. “Hey.”
“No,” she said. “I’m serious. He’s pissed off at me all the time, and the minute you moved in, he decided he was ready to start dating again. What is your issue, Andrew? You have something you want to tell me about why you’re acting like a jealous boyfriend? You want to explain it to her?” She tipped her head toward Monica, whose feet were still in his lap.
Andy, even with the hoppy aroma currently wafting from every word he said, was now still. All he said, when he finally said anything, was “What?”
Dean stayed right by Evvie’s ear. “Listen to me. Listen, listen. You have had a lot to drink. You trust me, right? You trust me. I am telling you that you have had a lot to drink. This is a bunch of things you don’t mean. You’re upset, and you’re very drunk, and in the morning, this is already going to be an unhappy situation, so listen to me and let me help you and take you inside so you can go to sleep. Let’s go to sleep.”